SEATTLE — An ambitious plan announced last week to return a killer whale held captive for more than a half-century, to her home waters in Washington’s Puget Sound thrilled those who have long advocated for her to be freed from her tank at the Miami Seaquarium.
But it also called to mind the release of Keiko — the star of the movie “Free Willy” — more than two decades ago. Keiko’s return to his native Iceland vastly improved upon his life in a Mexico City tank, but he failed to adapt to the wild and died five years later.
He is the only orca released after long-term captivity. Some of the whale’s former caregivers are warning she could face a similar fate — or that she might not survive a move across the country.
But advocates say there are big differences between the cases and that their experience with Keiko will inform how they plan for the whale’s return.
While they hope to bring Lolita — also known as Tokitae, or Toki — to a whale sanctuary among the Pacific Northwest’s many islands, they know she might never again swim freely with her endangered family, including the nearly century-old whale believed to be her mother.
Here’s a look at Tokitae’s story.
HOW DID TOKI WIND UP IN CAPTIVITY?
Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest revere orcas, considering them their relatives.
White settlers had a different view. Fishermen reviled the “blackfish” as competition for salmon and sometimes shot them.
That began to change in 1965, when a man named Ted Griffin bought a killer whale that had been caught in a fisherman’s net in British Columbia and towed it to the Seattle waterfront. The whale — Namu — became a sensation.
Namu soon died from an infection, but Griffin had set off a craze for capturing the Pacific Northwest’s killer whales and training them to perform, as The Seattle Times recounted in a 2018 history. Griffin corralled dozens of orcas off Washington’s Whidbey Island in 1970. Several got caught and drowned when opponents cut the nets, intending to free them.
Many orcas remained nearby, declining to leave as their clan members were hauled out of the water. Among those kept was 4-year-old Tokitae, later sold to the Miami Seaquarium.
By the early 1970s, at least 13 Northwest orcas had been killed and 45 delivered to theme parks around the world; Toki is the only one still alive. The roundups reduced the Puget Sound resident population by about 40% and helped cause problems with inbreeding that imperil them today.
Outrage over the captures helped prompt the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
WHY BRING TOKI HOME?
Lolita, now 57, spent decades performing. Last year, the Miami Seaquarium announced it would no longer feature her under an agreement with regulators. The 5,000-pound animal lives in a tank 80 feet by 35 feet and 20 feet deep.
Whales are intelligent, social creatures, and activists have long dreamed of returning Tokitae to her family.
The whale believed to be Toki’s mother is the matriarch of L-pod, one of three clans that make up the so-called southern resident killer whales, a genetically and socially distinct population that frequents the Salish Sea between Washington and British Columbia. There are 73 southern residents remaining.
Plans call for bringing Toki to a netted whale sanctuary of about 15 acres. She would be released into an enclosure the size of a couple football fields within that sanctuary, where she would be under round-the-clock care.
“The first objective is to provide her the highest quality of life we can,” said Charles Vinick, a founder of the nonprofit Friends of Toki as well as executive director of the Whale Sanctuary Project. “Whether or not it becomes the dream of having her reunite with L-pod is something we have to rely on Lolita to show us.”
Because the southern residents are endangered, advocates would have to obtain additional permits if they ever wanted to return Toki fully to the wild. Advocates would likely have to show that introducing another aging whale to feed wouldn’t burden the population further.
With financial backing from Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, they have agreed to support Lolita long term, whether she’s reintroduced or not.
A group of some of Toki’s former caregivers called Truth 4 Toki announced an online petition Tuesday to keep her in Florida — perhaps in a pool at SeaWorld Orlando, where she can live alongside the two Pacific white-sided dolphins she has lived with for the past 30 years.
“I am certain this is NOT in her best interest,” one of her former trainers, Alli Hagan, said in a news release announcing the petition. “Moving her across the country to a seapen is a dangerous and unnecessary.”
But for Raynell Morris, an elder of the Lummi Indian Tribe in Washington and a board member of Friends of Toki, the whale’s return is fundamental.
“Until she’s returned to her family, our family is broken,” Morris said. “When she comes home, the web of life will be repaired and restored, and our people will be repaired and restored.”